Dream Sequence
Darkness at end of sleep,
silence dawns;
blackbirds in flight.
Once the pond is free
of ice, still water reflects
the mid-day sun.
Clear night,
a full moon
creates shadows
Dawn without light.
Intense fog and rain.
Slowly, the sun clarifies.
Last Day of Pre-school, Yellow Brick Road Nursery School, 1975
They tried to appear
braver than they were,
the parents
of this little girl,
maybe five years old,
long blonde hair,
blue eyes,
pale and thin
almost without
weight at all
Her parents explaining,
gently, calmly as they can
to attentive children,
including my own two boys,
that she, their daughter,
could not play with them
but she wanted to be
with kids, “like herself”
one more time
just to sit
maybe talk for awhile
maybe laugh
this warm
Spring afternoon
No one talking for a while
after that parent’s
brief speech
even the children,
especially the children,
knowing what
happens next
Our Lady of the Kitchen Appliances
has razored out all the center
pages of the “New Joy of Cooking”
from vegetables to game, and sewn in
the text of a “New Joy of Sex”
listening to Drop Kick Murphys as she
hand mashes potatoes, muddles fruit,
adds spice to stuffing, strips layers
from a leg of lamb, rubbing the bare
flesh with herbs, spiking with garlic,
preparing a feast she can’t wait to
shove inside the oven, boils extra water
until the kitchen is like a steam bath,
clothes clinging to her sweating body,
finally hot enough, she can really
begin to cook.
© Alan Catlin
Alan Catlin has been publishing since the 1970’s. Among his many publications are well over sixty-five chapbooks and full length books of prose and poetry. His most recent full length book is a memoir with poetry, Books of the Dead.
The Loch Raven Review 
i think this cld b turned into prose